“Are her parents long dead?”
“Six years. They were killed in an accident in Glasgow while arranging to buy a cargo—a terrible shock it was.”
Richard raised his brows. “An especially big shock for Catriona. She would have been—what? Seventeen?”
“Sixteen. Naturally, Da’ wanted her here—the vale’s an isolated spot, no place for a lone girl, you’d think.”
“She wouldn’t come?”
Jamie’s face contorted. “Da’ made her. She came.” He shuddered, and took a long sip of his port. “It was horrific. The arguments—the shouting. I thought Da’ would have a seizure, she goaded him that much. I don’t think he’d ever had anyone argue back like she did—I wouldna dared.”
As he drank more port, Jamie’s accent emerged; like many Scots of his age, he’d learned to suppress it.
“She didna want to stay—Da’ wanted her here. He had plans afoot to marry her well—she needed someone to take care of her lands, he thought.”
“Her lands?”
“The vale.” Jamie drained his glass. “She owns the whole damned valley from head to mouth. But she wasn’t having any of Da”s plans. Said she knew what she was doing, she had The Lady to guide her, and she would, on her mother’s grave, obey The Lady, not Da’. She was dead set against marriage. Mind you, when those lairds who’d offered for her on the strength of her lands actually met her, they sang a different tune. All the offers dissolved like mist in a strong breeze.”
Richard frowned, wondering if Scottish notions of feminine attractions were so different.
“Of course, everyone o’ them was imagining bedding her, until they spoke to her.” Jamie’s lips quirked; he exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Richard. “She scared ’em silly—the beggars came from Edinburgh and Glasgow, or one of the cities, lairds in need of estates. They didna know about The Lady, and to hear Catriona tell it, if they displeased her at all, she wouldha’ turned ’em into toads. Or eels. Or some such slimy creature.”
Richard grinned. “They believed her?”
“Aye, well—when she wants to be believed, she can be that persuasive.”
Recalling the power he’d heard her wield twice, Richard had no difficulty believing that.
“And that other one, Algaria—Miss O’Rourke—was there to help. So,”—Jamie reached for the decanter—“after that, there were no more offers. Da’ was livid—Catriona was unmovable. The fighting raged for weeks.”
“And?”
“She won.” Jamie set down his glass. “She went back to the vale, an’ that was that. Da’ never spoke of her again. I didna think she’d agree to live here now, but Mary said we should at least ask. Especially after finding the letters.”
“Letters?”
“Offers for her lands, rather than her hand. Heaps of ’em. Some from the lairds who’d given up notions of bedding her, others from all over, some from her neighbors in the Lowlands. All, however, for a pittance.” Again Jamie drained his glass. “I found the pile in Da”s desk—he’d scrawled comments on many.” Jamie’s lips twisted. “Like ‘Bah! Am I a fool?’ ”
“The land’s good?”
“Good?” Jamie set down his glass. “You won’t find better in Scotland.” He met Richard’s eye. “According to Catriona and her people, The Lady sees to that.”
Richard raised his brows.
“Aye, well.” With a rueful grimace, Jamie pushed back his chair. “We’d best get back to the drawing room.”
Entering the long room beside Jamie, Richard paused just beyond the threshold. To one side, Catriona stood chatting to one of Jamie’s colorless sisters. Perhaps chatting was the wrong word—from her gestures, lecturing might be nearer the mark. The ever watchful Miss O’Rourke stood silently, hands clasped, by Catriona’s shoulder; her gaze, black and expressionless, was already fixed on him. Richard resisted the urge to grin wickedly at her; instead, with his usual grace, he crossed to pay his compliments to his hostess.
Mary was easily flattered, easily flustered; Richard spent some time calming her, until she could smile at him and answer his questions.
“She doesn’t seem to see any need for a husband.” Her eyes darted to Catriona, then returned to his face. “It seems odd, I know, but she has been running the manor for six years now, and I gather everything goes smoothly.” Another darting glance lingered on Catriona’s elegant dark lavender gown. “She certainly seems to want for nothing, and she’s never made any claim on the McEnerys.”
“I’m surprised,”—Richard affected his most indolent drawl—“that there are no local aspirants to her hand. Or does the valley boast only a few souls?”
“Oh, no. The population’s quite considerable, I believe. But none of the young men would look to Catriona, you know.” Mary regarded him earnestly. “She’s their ‘lady,’ you see. The lady of the vale.”
“Ah.” Richard nodded, although he didn’t see at all, but there was a limit to how far he could question even sweet Mary without raising suspicions. But he wanted to understand who and what Catriona Hennessy was, and how she’d come to be so. She was an intriguing “lady” on a number of fronts; he’d been so bored, she was a breath of fresh air—a fresh taste to his jaded palate.
He glanced her way and saw her look sharply at Algaria O’Rourke as the older woman struggled to suppress a yawn. The conversation that ensued was easy to follow; Catriona, moved by concern, pulled rank and ordered her watchdog to bed. Richard quickly looked away—and felt, a second later, the older woman’s suspicious glance. But she went, passing the tea trolley on her way. The butler stationed the trolley before Mary.
“Let me help.” Richard collected the first two cups Mary poured. “I’ll take them to Miss Hennessy and . . .”
“Meg,” Mary supplied with a smile. “If you would be so kind.”
Richard smiled and moved away.
“Meg? Miss Hennessy?”
Both turned in response to his drawl. Meg’s eyes fixed on the cups in his hands. “Oh! Ah . . .” She swallowed, and turned a delicate shade of green. “I . . . don’t think so.” She cast a desperate glance at Catriona. “If you’ll excuse me?”
With a helpless look at Richard, she hurried across the room and slipped out of the door.
“Well!” Brows high, Richard looked down at the tea. “Is it that bad?”
“Of course not.” Catriona relieved him of one cup. “It’s just that Meg’s increasing and a bit fragile at present. The most unexpected things turn her stomach.”
“Is that what you’ve been so earnestly discussing?”
“Yes.”
Richard met Catriona’s gaze over the rim of her cup as she sipped; her head barely topped his shoulder, yet her manner proclaimed her belief that she was as powerful, if not more powerful, than he. There was no hint of feminine weakness, or any acknowledgment of susceptibility.
Lowering her cup, she eyed him evenly. “I’m a healer.”
The declaration was cool; Richard affected polite surprise. “Oh?” He’d assumed as much, but better she think him an ignorant southerner, a gullible Sassenach, if she were so disposed. “Eye of newt and toe of frog?”
The look she cast him was measuring. “I use herbs and roots, and other lore.”
“Do you spend much time hovering over a bubbling cauldron, or is it more like a well-stocked stillroom?”
She drew a tight breath, her gaze on his steadfastly innocent expression, then exhaled. “A stillroom. An encyclopedic one.”
“Not a cave, then.” Bit by bit, Richard drew her out—and with each factual answer, her fridigity melted a fraction more. He held to his harmless, bantering pose, letting his gaze touch her face only briefly, politely. Her hair drew his eyes more frequently, a magnetic beacon. Even among all the redheads in the room, her crowning glory made her stand out. The soft curls shimmered in the candlelight; those about her face and neck jiggled as she moved, exerting the same mesmeric attraction as dancing flames. They held the promise
of heat—Richard felt an overwhelming urge to warm his hands in them.
He blinked and forced himself to look away.
“Naturally, there are some things not available locally, but we send out for them.”
“Naturally,” he murmured. Shifting so he stood beside her, supposedly scanning the room, he glanced swiftly at her profile. The ice had melted significantly; with her flaming tresses and those gold sparks in her eyes, he felt sure there’d be a volcano beneath. For the first time since joining her, he focused intently on her face. “Your lips taste of roses, did you know?”
She stiffened, but didn’t disappoint him; the look she shot him over the rim of her cup held fire, not ice. “I thought you would be gentleman enough to forget that incident entirely. Wipe it from your mind.”
There was compulsion in her last words; Richard let it flow past him. He smiled lazily down at her. “You have that twisted. I’m far too much a gentleman to forget that incident, not even its most minor detail.”
“No gentleman would mention it.”
“How many gentlemen do you know?”
She sniffed. “You shouldn’t have grabbed me like that.”
“My dear Miss Hennessy! You walked into my arms.”
“You shouldn’t have held me like that.”
“If I hadn’t held you, you would have slipped and fallen on your luscious—”
“And you certainly shouldn’t have kissed me.”
“That was unavoidable.”
She blinked. “Unavoidable?”
Richard looked down, into her green eyes. “Utterly.” He held her gaze, then raised his brows. “Of course, you didn’t have to kiss me back.”
Color rose in her cheeks; she looked back at her cup. “A moment of temporary insanity, immediately regretted.”
“Oh?”
She glanced up, hearing danger in his tone, but wasn’t quick enough to stop him from stroking, not the nape of her neck, so temptingly exposed, but the coppery curls that caressed her sensitive skin. Unobserved by the company, Richard caressed them.
And she shivered, quivered.
Then hauled in a breath and thrust her empty cup at him. “I find the company entirely too fatiguing—and the journey here was boring in the extreme.” Her words were couched in sheet ice, her tone a chill wind blowing straight from the Arctic. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I shall retire.”
“Now, that,” Richard said, taking the cup, “I didn’t expect.”
She paused in the act of stepping away and shot him a suspicious glance. “What didn’t you expect?”
“I didn’t expect you to run away.” He looked down at her as she studied him, and wondered how she did it. No hint of volcanic heat remained, not even a tiny glow of feminine warmth; she was encased in polar ice, colder than any iceberg. And the air had literally turned chill—the lady of the vale could give the ice-maidens of London lessons. He let the ends of his lips curve. “I’m only teasing you.”
It came to him then—no other man had—no other man had ever dared.
She frowned, measuring him and his words. Eventually, she exhaled. “I won’t go if you keep your hands to yourself and don’t mention our previous encounter. As I told you, that was a complete and utter mistake.”
Catriona imbued the last words with conviction, but, as before, it had little effect. He seemed immune, as if he could deflect her suggestive powers easily—an observation that did little to settle her skittish nerves.
When she’d walked into the drawing room and seen him there, his blue gaze direct, as if he’d been waiting for her, she had, for the first time in her life, literally felt faint. Dumbfounded. And . . . something else. Something more akin to searing excitement, something that had made her nervous, aware, set alive in a way she’d never been before.
For the first time in a long while, she wasn’t sure she could control her world, her situation. She was not at all sure she could control him.
Which, first and last, was the crux of her problem.
She watched as he set their empty cups on a side table, and wished he’d been forced to keep them in his hands. Hands she’d already spent some time studying; long-fingered, elegantly made, they were the hands of an artist, not a warrior. At least, not a simple warrior. Standing beside him, she was all too aware that her bedevilled senses had reported accurately on the man who had stolen a kiss—several kisses—from her. He was large and strong—not the strength of sheer brawn, but a more supple, skillful strength, infinitely more dangerous. There was intelligence in his eyes, and something else besides—the embers of that hot, prowling hunger glowed behind the blue.
He straightened. And nodded to the rest of the company. “Is this all Seamus’s family?”
“Yes.” She scanned the room’s occupants. “They all live here.”
“All the time, I understand.”
“They have little choice. Seamus was a miser in many ways.” She glanced about the room. “You must have noticed the ambience—hopefully, once Jamie and Mary and the others finally realize it’s theirs now, and they no longer need Seamus’s approval for every penny spent, they’ll make it more livable.”
“More like a home? Amen to that.”
Surprised by his acuity, Catriona glanced up; his polite mask told her nothing.
He trapped her gaze. “You clearly didn’t like Seamus. If you won’t consider moving here to live, why have you come?”
“I’m here to pay my final respects.” She considered, then added, more truthfully: “He was a hard man, but he did as he deemed right. He might have been an adversary, but I did respect him.”
“Magnanimous in victory?”
“There was no battle.”
“That’s not how the locals tell it.”
She humphed. “He was misguided—I set him right.”
“Misguided because he wanted you to wed?”
“Precisely.”
“What have you got against the male of the species?”
How had they got onto this topic? She slanted her tormentor a sharp glance. “Just that—they’re male.”
“A sorry fact, but most women find there are compensations.”
She humphed again, the sound eloquently disbelieving. “Such as?”
“Such as . . .”
His tone registered; she turned and met his eyes—and the glow that danced therein. Her breathing seized; her heartbeat suddenly sounded loud. With an effort, she found breath enough to warn: “No teasing.”
His lips, untrustworthy things—she tried hard not to focus on them—lifted; his eyes glowed all the more. “A little teasing would do you good.” His voice had dropped to a deep purr, sliding over her senses; Catriona detected the power in the words, although she hadn’t met its like before. It was . . . beguiling; instinctively, she resisted. She felt like she was swaying, but knew she hadn’t moved.
“You might even find you . . .”—his brows quirked—“enjoy it.”
Behind her back, screened from the company, his hand rose; Catriona sensed it with every pore of her skin, every nerve in her body. An inch from her silk-encased form, it rose, slowly skimming without touching, until it reached her neckline and rose . . .
“Don’t!” The word was a breathless command; his hand halted, hovering, close, very close, to her quivering curls. If he touched them again . . .
“Very well.”
A seductive purr, with no hint of contrition; he was being triumphantly magnanimous now. But his hand didn’t disappear—it reversed direction. Slowly, so slowly her skin had ample time to prickle and heat, his hand traced her back, down over her shoulder blades, over the slight indentation at her waist, then, even more slowly, over the curve of her hips.
Not once did he touch her, yet when his hand dropped away, she was shaking inside—so badly, as she stepped away and, half-turning, inclined her head in his direction, she could barely form the words: “If you’ll excuse me, I should retire.”
She left him without meeting
his eyes, quite sure of the male triumph she would see there, unsure of her hold on her temper if she did.
Meg had returned; she was sitting, wan-faced, in an armchair. Catriona stopped before her. “Come to my room when you go up—I’ll have that potion ready.”
“Are you going up now?”
“Yes.” Catriona bit off the word, then forced a smile. “I fear the journey here was more fatiguing than I’d thought.”
With a regal nod, she swept from the room, conscious, to the very last, of a blue, blue gaze fixed unwaveringly on her back.
Chapter 3
A few minutes before eleven o’clock the next morning, Catriona made her way to the library, whence they’d been summoned to hear Seamus’s last testament. She’d breakfasted in her room—because it was warmer there.
The attempt at self-deception worried her, as did its cause. She’d breakfasted privately so she wouldn’t have to face Richard Cynster and the power he wielded. Whatever it was. She knew, of course, but she wasn’t game to let herself contemplate it. At all. That way lay confusion.
A footman stood before the library door; he opened it and she glided through. And gave thanks that some sensible soul had given orders for the fire to be built up above its usual meager pile. The cavernous fireplace filled one end of the monstrous room, the largest in the house, stretching the length of one entire wing. As the walls were stone and the narrow windows uncurtained, the room was perpetually chill. She’d dressed appropriately in a dress of blue merino wool with long fitted sleeves, but was still grateful for the fire.
Jamie and Mary sat on the chaise; the others sat in armchairs on either side, all the seats arrayed in a semicircle facing the fire and, to one side, the huge old desk behind which Seamus had habitually sat. Now, a Perth solicitor sat in Seamus’s chair and shuffled papers.
Subsiding into the one vacant armchair, between Meg and Malcolm, Catriona returned the solicitor’s polite nod, then acknowledged the others present, only at the very last letting her eyes meet Richard Cynster’s.
He sat on the other side of the chaise, beyond Mary, filling a chair with an indolent grace in stark contrast to the tentative postures of the other males present. He inclined his head, his expression impassive; Catriona inclined her head in return and forced her eyes elsewhere.
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